Light in Wonderland
by Porcelain Roses
Summary: By listening to a mad cat, Light unknowingly got himself into a horrid situation that involved a kidnapped Mad Hatter named L, an obsessed Red-Eyed King named Beyond Birthday, and a whole set of other curious characters. How curious.LxLxB. ON HIATUS!
1. Prologue: Curiouser and Curiouser

Hello, dears. I thought of writing this story after watching the newly released 'Alice in Wonderland' movie today. Does anyone think that movie is positively amazing? I have yet to decide if this FF will be based on Lewis Carroll's book or the movie based off it. Probably a mix of both.

I do not own and am not associated with Death Note or 'Alice in Wonderland' the movie OR book.

I definitely appreciate reviews. Please review, I need constructive critiques/comments. Flames I don't care much about. Do remember, this is simply a prologue, the next chapters will be much longer and much more interesting.

I update depending on how many reviews I receive, and, I'm currently reading 'Alice in Wonderland', so I'll also update every time I read a new chapter. Don't worry; I don't take forever to read.

One last thing...I try as best as I can to make my stories enjoyable to everyone, so if there's a character you feel is OOC or something, leave a constructive review.

Without further ado, I present to you:

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Light in Wonderland

p r o l o g u e

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_The story of Light Yagami started off when he was bored out of his genius mind, and took place after an equally bored entity led him to a whimsical world known as Wonderland. _

Caramel eyes scanned over the English novel in an oh-so-bored manner, the eyes' owner absorbing every paragraph the English teacher analyzed yet not listening to a thing. The seventeen-year-old boy's gaze shifted past the clear glass window and out to the school's brick courtyard. Some male students carelessly skipping class sat near the rather large black fountain in the middle of the courtyard, chatting and laughing. Obviously, the trio were friends.

Friends...

Friends.

Friends?

The boy rolled his eyes as he bitterly repeated the word over and over again in his mind. He decided, quite a few years ago, that he needed no friends...he just needed pawns. 'What is it about friends? Why do humans need friends?' the boy thought, a bitter taste hanging on his tongue, 'It's true that companionship is one of the five major human needs, but _why_? Friends can be nice, I suppose, if you choose the right ones. But it's so hard to choose anything rightly. Friends are only nice if they're innocent, naive. Humans are naturally evil, so 'friends' is a term that simply describes one who uses another's private secrets and thoughts for their own good. Do humans enjoy this? Then that proves that humans are sadistic, masochistic entities. Hmmm...curiouser and curiouser---'

"Light Yagami!" the elderly teacher snapped, "Are you paying attention?"

"Yes, Mr. Akihito," Light responded.

"Alright, then read the second paragraph of the novel," he hissed.

Light glanced down at the worn, yellowish page of the English book. "Okay..." The words spilled out of Light's mouth like water spilled off the edge of a waterfall, and anyone who didn't attend Yagami's English class would've thought English, not Japanese, was his first language.

"Very good..." the teacher muttered, obviously not enjoying Light's superiority in the English language. Taro Akihito continued narrating the book, and Yagami, once again, turned his gaze to the courtyard outside.

Caramel eyes widened slightly at the newfound sight:

Instead of three teenage boys, there was what appeared to be a strange cat, innocently (or not so innocently) laying in front of the fountain, licking its rounded paws. Its grey fur was striped with bands of black, and it was abnormally large for a housecat. Its size and stature resembled a cheetah's. Each of its pointed ears were pierced, a heart earring hanging off one ear while an unidentifiable glint of silver hung off the other. The cat suddenly snapped its head up to reveal golden eyes with slit black pupils that were aimed right at Light. The most surprising feature of the strange animal was the toothy grin that creepily stretched across its long face.

"Yagami-san!" Mr. Akihito snapped again, "I understand you're paying attention, but I'd like it if I could actually see your face while I teach!"

Light Yagami's light brown eyes coolly met Taro Akihito's beady blue eyes.

"Thank you very much," he muttered.

But as soon as the blue eyes rolled down to read the novel, Light glanced out the window to try and catch another glimpse of the wonderfully strange creature...only to find its lanky body gone.

He sighed, and paid attention to the English teacher for the first time that day.

Geniuses can't stay interested in an uninteresting subject for long, and, halfway through the lecture, Yagami raised a thin arm and asked the teacher, "May I go to the bathroom, sir?"

"Go," the man with thinning white hair commanded without even looking up from the book.

Light slowly scraped his chair back and left the room without making a peep.

He strolled through the droll school's halls, stumbled down some stairs, and took a sharp right turn to arrive at the nearest boy's bathroom. As he entered the small structure, he noticed that it was completely empty. "How strange..." he mumbled aloud to himself, "These bathrooms are never completely empty..."

Instead of doing 'business' of any kind, Light Yagami shuffled in front of a mirror, and gasped as the image of a grey-and-black grinning cat materialized behind him. Out of fear he spun around, just to stand face-to-face with a urinal. Nothing was out of place, nor did anything seem to be tarnished by the presence of a stray cat. The walls were still light blue, the floor still pure white tile, the lighting still horrible. No grotesque cat was in sight.

Light shakily spun counter-clockwise to face the mirror again, and gripped the edges of a porcelain sink below him. "There's nothing to fear. It's just your imagination, Light. That cat...is just a product of boredom..." he told himself, managing a steely gaze.

After a few deep, calming breaths, Light turned the steel knob of the sink and relished the cool water that flowed out. He cupped his hands together and splashed some on his face (taking care to miss his hair, of course). He then snatched some brown paper towels from a basket next to the sink and wiped his hands on them. He smoothed out his crisp white button-down uniform shirt and the matching khaki pants, and turned to leave the bathroom to return to the oh-so-boring English class.

"Ha-ha...he-he...ha ha ha ha ha..." a deep and raspy chuckle echoed in the small bathroom, and Light Yagami froze in place, his body slowly being taken over by numbness.

"Hello...? Who's there?" he asked assertively, taking care not to allow his voice to crack out of fear.

"You're late..." the voice chuckled again.

"P...pardon?"

"...You're late...someone very close to you is dying and you're late..." it taunted, no sign of the voice's owner showing.

At this, Light scoffed, "No one is close to me. Only my pawns are close to me, and even they're not that close."

"Hyuk hyuk hyuk...you sound like someone I know...except he has pawns and friends who think they're friends but are really pawns---"

"You make no sense," Light interrupted rudely, his ego slowly coming back to him.

"_You_ make no sense, my friend."

A few minutes of a pregnant silence sifted by, but the still unknown voice murdered it.

"...You're late...you need to return...someone close to you is dying and you need to return..."

"You already told me that. And why should I take an order from something too cowardly to show its face?" Light snapped, turning on his heel and peering around the empty stalls, hoping to find the voice's owner.

"He-he-he...I'm showing my face...maybe you're just too cowardly to see it. Look in the mirror," the voice giggled.

Light obeyed the voice's orders, and once he peered through the looking glass, he found himself glaring at the cat he witnessed when he first entered the bathroom. Surprisingly enough, he was not afraid, as he had seen that cat two other times prior to this incident.

"What is your name, strange cat?" Light asked, cocking his head to the side.

"I need no name. Names are simply given so we don't confuse ourselves with someone else, and since there is no cat as odd as me in Wonderland, I need no name," the cat explained, its creepy grin never faltering. "Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk!"

"Can I call you Ryuk?" the boy asked, annoyed that the cat had no name.

"If it'll make you feel better, of course. Why, may I ask, would you call me 'Ryuk', though?"

"Your laugh sounds like 'hyuk, hyuk, hyuk!', but 'Ryuk' sounds like a better name," Light explained, "And my name is Light, by the way."

"Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk...I already know that. You're _the_ Light. The Light that needs to save him..." the newly named Ryuk rambled.

"Who's 'him'?" Light asked curiously.

"Who's who?"

"'Him.'"

"Oooh, who's 'him'?"

"Never mind!" Light finally snapped, storming out of the bathroom, "I need to get back to class. The professor will be wondering why I was in the bathroom for so long..."

"No, wait, don't go! You need to save him, you need to save Wonderland!" Ryuk yelled somewhat desperately.

"What the hell is Wonderland? Who the hell is 'him'?" Light roared while turning on his heel to face the now-invisible Ryuk once again.

"Only one way to find out. Through the looking glass, dear Light..." he drawled.

"Through the looking glass...?" Light murmured, his curiosity piquing. He slowly strolled over towards the shining mirror and pressed his hand on the clear surface. "Through the looking glass...? But what will I find past the looking glass---"

"Very good, very good, Light. I'll see you...on the other side...hyuk, hyuk, hyuk!"

"Wait, what are you---" Light started, but before he could finish, he found himself being swallowed by the silvery white of the seemingly unanimated mirror.

_And so by listening to a mad cat, Light unknowingly got himself into a horrid situation that involved a kidnapped Mad Hatter named L, the obsessed Red-Eyed King named Beyond Birthday, and a whole bunch of other curious characters. Curiouser and curiouser, indeed._


	2. 1 :: Mad World

As you'll see starting in this chapter, I'm not copying Carroll's book or Burton's movie word-by-word, scene-by-scene. In fact, I don't think I'll be following the plot very closely at all. I'm just borrowing the characters for the most part. I forgot to mention: this story is sort of AU, as Light was never Kira. As always, reviews motivate me to update quicker.

Also: I got a good amount of reviews for simply a prologue. Thank you all for reviewing, and keep 'em coming! Special thanks to Blind Justice for giving me an amazing list of adjectives to describe Light's eyes. Merci, dear!

-I'd like to apologize for the late update: the USB I save all my stories on crashed and I had to rewrite this chapter from scratch…rewriting stories are never any fun, especially when you have a bad case of writer's block.-

_While writing this chapter, I was listening to:_

_-I Want Nothing by Kerli-_

_-Breathe Me by Sia-_

_-Back to the Start by Lilly Allen-_

_-Love is Dead by Kerli- _

* * *

Light in Wonderland

part 1 : Mad World

_A young man is so strong, so mad, so certain, and so lost. He has everything and he is able to use nothing. -Thomas Wolfe  
_

* * *

Everything seemed to be played out in slow-motion: the cat Ryuk gracefully jumped into the mirror, forming ripples across the clear surface, and one of the ripples caught Light's hand and pulled him beneath the surface of the mirror.

He had no time to even open his mouth, as the second he felt the tug that launched him into the mirror, he found himself falling through a tunnel that appeared to be made of glass or some other clear, reflecting substance.

At first, Light kept on trying to let out all his fears of landing on the cold, hard ground and ending up as unresponsive as a pancake by screaming, but, when he found that he couldn't even open his mouth at the speed he was falling, he simply accepted the fact that he was...well, falling.

After a while, Light thought, 'What other clear, reflecting substance is there other than glass?', because even while he was falling through an endless tunnel, he found he could still think clearly. 'Clearly as in glass? Or clearly as in surely?' he thought again, finding himself becoming more confused by the second. 'More confused or more stupid?' And then he thought, 'What's the difference?' He sighed, and gave up on asking such silly questions, because he knew that they would lead to more questions, and an endless cycle would begin.

As he fell, and fell, and fell, Light noticed that the glass walls of the tunnel were nailed, strange little trinkets like pocket-watches and antique necklaces hanging off them. An unidentifiable species of silver-colored flowers grew off the reflecting surface.

'How odd...' Light thought, but that thought triggered another thought. 'Hey, where's the cat...Ryuk? He sort of...disappeared...' The brunette glanced around for any type of clue that would lead him to the cat or a way out of the tunnel, but when he glanced down, he found himself about ten feet away from the floor.

"Aaaaggghhh---oof!"

His face collided with a seemingly frozen surface: a beautiful, shining, checkered marble floor.

"Damn..." Light muttered as he shakily stood up, and, to his own surprise, he sighed, "...I'm okay..."

He observed his surroundings; trying to figure out where he was.

The marble floor shone so brightly Light could see his own features staring back at him. The white walls were decorated with black tapestry, and three ebony doors partly hidden by the tapestry completed the cozy room.

Light slowly stepped towards the first door within his sight, and shifted the golden handle. Locked. He then turned towards the second ebony door, and found that it, too, was locked. The last door he also had no luck with. The eighteen-year-old groaned angrily and dropped to the marble floor with his arms crossed on his chest. "Dammit! Why won't the doors open?"

"Aren't you quite the drama queen..." a familiar voice laughed, "Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk!"

"Ryuk! Where are you? I'd like to leave this hell-hole now..." Light started, frantically searching for the grey and black cat.

"If I help you escape this hell-hole, will you help me escape the clutches of the Red-Eyed King?" Ryuk asked, seemingly seriously and nervously for the first time since Light met him.

"The Red-Eyed King...?" Light muttered to himself, as if repeating his name would help decide whether he should help the mischievous cat or not.

"You heard me, did you not? You must know him!" he exclaimed.

"I heard you fine...I've just....never heard of anyone by the name of 'Red-Eyed King'," he explained, shoving his hands in his pants' pockets after he stood up slowly.

"You haven't...? Oh well, no use in taunting you about it. The Red-Eyed King is the cruel ruler of Wonderland. Currently, he has kidnapped the Mad Hatter Lawliet, and is holding him for his....sick...pleasures..." explained Ryuk, his voice faltering at the mention of the last two words.

Light slowly peered around the room, as to make sure he wasn't being watched. That explanation of the Red-Eyed King caused him to feel fairly uneasy. A man holding another for pleasure...? How...positively disturbing!

"W-who could love someone who's mad?" Light asked, cursing his voice for betraying him.

At this, Ryuk laughed maniacally, and, starting with his large pearly-white grin, he slowly became visible, albeit freakishly suspended in mid-air. When his curled tail unraveled, a key hung off its still slightly-curled end.

"Why, if no one loved anyone who was mad, no one would be loved because everyone's mad!" the cat laughed again.

"People---err, _entities_ like you are mad; entities like me are perfectly sane," the boy growled. Ever since his father had taken the job of being a policeman, Light had heard of mad people, and mad people weren't like Light. Mad people killed, mad people saw things through eyes clouded with insanity, mad people were..._mad_!

"Hehehe..." Ryuk started giggling, but his giggle turned out to be a full-out maniacal laugh. "Hyuk, hyuk, hyuk, hyuk!"

The boy gasped as the room suddenly started shrinking, claustrophobia Light never seemed to have numbing his lanky form. The doors, after the room shrunk, appeared to be simple dents in the wall, the tapestry could be used as a napkin for Light, and the cat suddenly looked like a child's stuffed toy.

"Ryuk! Hand me that key!" Light boomed, sitting in the only position that would comfort his seemingly giant body. His knees were pulled to his chest, his hands encircling them, his back bent over and his head bent slightly forward.

"Hahahaha! Fine, fine...I'll give you the key to the third door if you say you'll help me overthrow the Red-Eyed King," Ryuk grumbled.

"Yes, I'll help you! Now, my back hurts very badly..._please_ hand me the key?" Light said, but it ended up being more of a question than a command.

Ryuk levitated towards the boy's giant right hand and dropped the key that was about the size of a pin in his palm.

"Ryuk...? I can't really hold the key..." he said sheepishly.

"Oh, right. Admit that you're mad, first, and I'll change you back to your normal size and open the door for you as a bonus," the cat grinned while removing the key from Light's hand with his tail.

"I'm mad..." Light grumbled through flawless clenched teeth.

"I know you're mad. I would be too if I were your size," the cat murmured with a strange smirk. "I mean, that position of sitting is painful enough, but then you'd surely go mad because---"

"Ryuk…the key? My normal height?" the teenager interrupted him.

"Oh, oh, of course, dear Light…" The grinning animal drifted over to Light's nose, bonked his nose with his striped tail, and watched as he shrunk back to his normal size.

"Thank you. The key, please," he smiled slightly; his smile started to fade as Ryuk peered around nervously, and as he himself realized the key wasn't in that thin tail anymore.

"What key?"

"What do you mean, 'what key'?"

"What do you mean, 'what do you mean, what key'? I mean, I have no memory of promising to reward you with a key---"

"What are you _talking_ about? You specifically informed me that I could have the key to the third door for saying I was mad!"

"Oh? Did I?" the cat mumbled, cocking his head to the side, which was fairly strange since he was a cat…

"You did!"

"Oh? Did I?"

"Ryuk! Don't fuck with me!" At this, Light took a threatening step towards the cat, stomping his foot on the checkered ground, his yell echoing throughout the rather cramped room.

"I'm sorry if you're into those things but…I don't breed interracially…if that's the right word…oh, and I'm not like the Red-Eyed King either," Ryuk murmured, slightly flushed (or as flushed as a cat could appear) at the strange comment.

"No---! I---ugh…just…where's the key?" Light asked quite politely, taking deep breaths and fixing his school tie.

"Oh--! The key to the third door?"

"Yes. That's the key!" the caramel-eyed boy grinned, a flash of hope glistening in said eyes.

"I lost it."

"H….huh…? How…can you lose a key…in a room with a freaking ten foot diameter…?" he asked, his smile twitching, his sanity slowly slipping away. His last sane thought was, 'Maybe I _am_ mad.' And then, as quickly as it had come, his sanity had gone.

"No! No, no, no, NO! Get me out of here you messed up animal! I refuse to be stuck in a room with _you _for eternity!"

Light yelled with a passion he didn't know he ever held. The bubbling hatred nearly boiled over once Ryuk started to smile; his eyes glistening with impish happiness. If Light wasn't such a self-controlled person, he would've definitely murdered the cat by now. But, since he was somewhat sane, he didn't. Not yet, at least.

"Hahahahaha-a-a-a! Oh, what a show, what a show. Here's the key, dear Light," Ryuk giggled, unraveling his tail again, the key appearing mysteriously. "I wanted to see if you had the potential for snapping. Apparently, you do, my friend!"

'_Me_? An _experiment_? Oh, this cat will pay…eventually…' With an angry sigh, Light decided to leave the matter alone. He snatched the golden key from the cat's tail and stomped towards the door marked with the Roman numeral 'III'. He hastily fitted the golden key into its rightful matching golden lock, and practically threw the door open. The door slammed silently and slowly faded away into the colorful background.

He didn't notice the door fading away because as soon as the teenager opened the third door, all his anger and frustration slowly melted away, and a tiny but noticeable childlike smile found its way to his seemingly perfect face.

A gorgeous garden filled amber eyes with the vision of an enchanting forest: green grass crunched under the boy's feet, tall Sakura trees decorated with pink petals flowed elegantly with the crisp wind, a multitude of pastel-colored flowers were spread around, and, not too far off, the top of a pure white castle (the kind commonly seen in childrens' fairytales) could be seen clearly.

A rough voice interrupted Light's temporary peace: "Look! It's Hatter Lawliet's house!"

The teenager's eyes almost bulged out at the cat's comment. That was a _castle_ not a _house_, and he didn't even know that people lived in castles anymore!

"What? He _lives_ there?" Light asked incredulously.

"Yep; along with his successors. Well, he used to live there…at least…before the King kidnapped him…"

"How can we find the Hatter?" he asked, sympathy tickling his normally perky, sarcastic voice. This cat seemed to be attached to the Hatter.

"They can explain it better than I can," Ryuk murmured, but his murmur strengthened as he said, "Off we go to the House of Kings and Queens!"

"Wait, what?"

"Straight ahead, no time to waste!" the cat laughed as he (still floating) drifted in front of the boy. Light slowly started to lose sight of Ryuk, and struggled to convince himself to run after him in the crisp but nonetheless bothering hot weather.

"Hey! Wait up!"

* * *

'_Gotta run, gotta run, gotta run…'_ Ryuk thought as a sort of mantra to get to his destined location in time. If all went well, he'd be able to slip past the guards guarding the Red Castle's gate, dungeon, and L's prison. Then, he'd alert L that Light was here and was going to save him, and instruct him to remain calm. Plan B was, in preparation for an emergency such as Light's death (hey, Wonderland was vicious), he himself would find a way to break him out of the prison. After Lawliet was out of the dungeon (in both scenarios; Ryuk would break him out eventually, with or without Light's help) he'd take the Hatter to see his Kings-and-Queens-in-training, and from there on, the plan would be improvisation. All this would have to be done before Light realized he was gone, of course.

"Perfect. Now to find the Hatter…"

* * *

The sound of a heavy-set person clad in some kind of armor stepping aside echoed throughout the prison. The echo of a metal barred-door scraping against brick sounded shortly after.

"...Hatter L...it's been a while," a raven haired man smirked. He strolled towards the prisoner, who was chained to the grey brick wall of the dungeon.

Chains rattled as the original raven struggled to lift his head so that baggy eyes peered into red orbs.

"…"

The black haired man did not answer, because the King was right and he was wrong; it had been a while since the two saw each other, and Lawliet _hated _losing.

"I'm right, and you know it. But _why_ didn't we see each other? I don't understand. Do you hate me? I know I don't hate me; isn't it wrong to hate a God of Death?" the King started asking the Hatter, but halfway through, his sentences turned into somewhat mindless rambles.

"You obviously haven't lost that confident streak. But I was right, as I am most of the time, in thinking that you would attempt to overthrow the current King and take control of Wonderland---" the Hatter murmured.

"You're wrong," the King said with an almost comical frown on his pale face, scuffing a black sneaker on the brick floor.

"Am I?"

"Yes, you are. You say that you're rarely wrong, but in saying that you're rarely wrong, you're wrong. Therefore you're not _rarely_ wrong, you're wrong most of the time."

"Oh, pardon me, _King_," the Hatter said, almost spitting the last word.

"Lawliet. You understand that you'll be here forever, with me, don't you? You are mine now. Nothing and no one but death will take you from me. And I'll know beforehand when you die, so that shouldn't be a problem. You better start respecting me or I'll have punishments for your disgustingly bland retaliations," the cruel ruler snickered and then glanced above the raven's head. _'He has many more years to spend with me.'_

At the frightening and disrespectful statement, the Red-Eyed King expected Lawliet to yell something that would give him a reason to hurt the other, or, at the very least, murmur a discourteous comeback so he could backhand him, but the Red-Eyed King didn't get his wish.

Instead, the Hatter made sure his eyes held no emotions and, to the owner of the strange eye's surprise, forced a minute smile to form on his pale face.

"I won't be here trapped here for much longer."

"Oh? And why not?"

The Hatter's smile turned into a soft and pitiful laugh:

"The prophecy is coming to life."

"The prophecy? That piece of paper crafted by the previous King? Fucker thought he was psychic…"

"Don't speak of my father that way. He _was _psychic. Light is here in Wonderland… Backup."

* * *

'_Dammit!' _Light thought angrily, chest heaving in and out in a futile attempt to try and catch his breath. '_Where the hell is that cat?'_

…

"Well at least I'm not running in circles anymore…" he mumbled after a few moments of breath-catching and counting down from ten slowly.

Until five seconds ago, Light had been running towards the direction the insane cat was leading him in, but as he travelled further and further into the forest, he found himself more and more lost. No distinguishing landmark features would lead him to the direction of the castle; there was only the top of the castle itself, and even that didn't seem to be getting closer. The Sakura trees were still swaying in the wind, the pastel-colored flowers still shifted, the grass was still a lovely emerald shade…until now.

When the eighteen-year-old decided to rebel from the path that seemed right, he landed himself in a sort of…predicament.

The forest was not beautiful or lush anymore. The ground seemed swampy and was a sickening shade of green. Black trees missing greenery had gnarled trunks that appeared to make faces contorted in pain. No flowers decorated the swamp; only golden weeds were present. And by really looking at his surroundings, Light thought, '_How far away am I really from this castle?' _But the shining tip of the white castle was still visible in the distance, so he thought, _'Can't be too far…unless that's an illusion…?'_

As soon as the thought came to him, it disappeared, and Light continued to walk through the dark green guck and weeds, forward, prepared and determined to find Ryuk and the castle.

He was not prepared, though, for the murder scene awaiting him quite a few steps away.

* * *

**Important! Read this!**

The timeline in this chapter is screwed up. Completely. Here's a timeline so you're not hopelessly confused next chapter (read it through!):

Light falls through mirror

Mirror scene happens…

Ryuk and him enter the forest and see castle; Ryuk floats off and Light loses sight of him, so he starts to run towards the direction he saw Ryuk float in

Ryuk finds L and tells him the whole plan/Light's in Wonderland, then starts to head back to Light

L and Beyond converse and L tells Beyond that Light's in Wonderland

Murder happens

Light comes across murder scene

**Everything after '5' is explained in more detail next chapter; don't worry. **

Thanks for reading ! More reviews= less time to wait for update (if my new USB doesn't crash… ).


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